Do we say humor or a sense of humor? With the latter phrase, which gives humor an additional framework, we have created a general societal belief that humor is a skill you either have or do not have a sense for.
Allow me to engage with humor as an important topic that does not have this framework and belief. Humor is too serious a topic to be understood superficially.
I was born in a city known for its humor and people who not only love it but also play a significant role in their daily existence. Observing human processes, I now realize how humor indeed has a crucial role that often remains unarticulated for some reason. Although I have been in the coaching world for 14 years, in the very beginning, I was convinced that humor had no place in the business, serious context of coaching. However, client feedback prompted me to question this. What kind of humor are we talking about here?
The humor I speak of is not premeditated, it has no intention of being funny, nor does it wish to create such an atmosphere in the conversation. And especially does not contain any hint of mockery or belittling. What later came to be called humor, and what the other side laughed at, was us, people, stripped bare and exposed.
Perhaps I should take a step back and say that in coaching, we often reveal the existence of our internal ‘Gremlins’. They are mechanisms of beliefs, habits, and convictions that shape our thinking and actions. Each of us builds and perfects these Gremlins over years and even decades. We know such programs as the expression of our face in the mirror, and we see nothing negative or dangerous there. The truth is, some Gremlins can have a very negative impact on a person’s behavior and results.
Our spontaneous and unexpectedly humorous moments arise from the revelation of our mature ‘domestic animal’. In the coaching relationship, it must be accompanied by respect and trust. When we work on deep processes, we uncover vulnerability that can be accompanied by tears, but also laughter. Coaching often uses the term mirroring as a description of what we coaches do. However, in practice, that image in the mirror is not perfect like a real mirror, nor should it be. A coach sometimes acts like a provocative caricaturist who magnifies the reproduction of what they see and hear, in order to open a new perspective for the interlocutor. The revelation of Gremlins and getting to know their owners who created and nurtured them becomes like a good life joke, except this joke remains a secret between those two people: the coach and the client.
